If you have been reading my blog, you know that I have been toying around with the idea of going back to school for my Astronomy Bachelor’s degree. I may even continue on to a Master’s degree. I am not certain if I have it in me to the full PhD/postdoc route. But grad school is a decision to be made a year before graduation.

I talked with an Astronomy/Astrophysics academic advisor at Indiana University back in December. Here is the rough course schedule we came up with.

Nearly all of my liberal arts and non-degree credits are done and were taken recently enough that I can count them toward this degree. I will also need to take an intensive writing course at some point in this degree program. Given all that math and physics, it would be a welcome break.

I am making a pretty big assumption with this course schedule. That assumption is that I quit my steady, well-paid, job with health benefits and go back to school full time for another three years. That is a decision I am still wrestling with and I am far from making a decision. This is really just a thought exercise for me to see how long it would take me to complete this degree that I have been eying since 2007.

Note: Before reading this post, please note that this started out as a personal writing piece that I never really intended to share, but I decided to put it out there, anyway. I normally write about technology, education, science, or ethics, things that affect everyone. I have avoided personal stuff here for the most part, but I have decided to share this.

In the time since I graduated from high school in 2006, I have struggled to figure out what it is, exactly, that I want to do with my life. I think that most people struggle with this question. Some even struggle with it until the day they die.

When I first launched into college, I was a freshman at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, a commuter campus in downtown Indy. I was not completely of my major, which was geology at the time. It just seemed like an area that I was somewhat interested in and that I could get through with relative ease. After my first semester, I started to reevaluate my options.

Before I started at IUPUI, I considered attending Indiana University’s main campus in Bloomington, about 90 minutes from my home and family. It was also slightly more expensive as I was living with my family and did not have to pay room and board at IUPUI.

After falling asleep a few times in my only geology course and not really getting into the subject like I had planned, I realized that that was probably not the area for me. So, in February 2007, in my second college semester, I applied for an inter-campus transfer to IUB and changed my major to Astronomy/Astrophysics.

In the fall of 2007, I had one astronomy course and I loved it. It was a Monday-Wednesday-Friday course that started at 8:45am, pretty early for me. Still, the material was fascinating and I loved every minute of it. I really got into the course.

The other courses were not as thrilling. I had to take a liberal arts class, in gender studies. It was a relatively easy course and I showed up and did pretty well. Still I tolerated it.

I took a 200-level introductory physics course for science majors, which went smoothly enough. Some of the material was challenging and frustrating at times. Still, I think I am better for having taken that course.

That fall ‘07 semester brought me the only F I have ever earned in a course, EVER. It was Calculus I. having taken several years of algebra and pre-calculus courses, I was not accustomed to calculus’ different notation and wildly different concepts. Coupled with homesickness and a bit of depression, I did not do well enough in that course to pass. In a four-month semester, my GPA had slipped from a 3.7 to a 1.8.

Despite wanting to remain at IUB and work on my astronomy degree, I recognized that I was not performing academically and burning through my college savings twice as fast as I was at IUPUI. With no astronomy degree program at IUPUI, I changed my major to Informatics and moved back in with my parents.

The Informatics decision was an interesting one. I think it was a decision made through pragmatism, rather than passion. I was told that most employers just want to see a bachelor’s degree on your résumé, no matter what it is in. Compared to that one semester in the astronomy program, six semesters in the informatics program was a cakewalk.

The courses were so easy that I could take 16 or 17 credit hours, work full time, and not really be pressed for time or energy. I was exposed to programming languages, information organization, applying technology to the real world, and a few other things while in the IU School of Informatics.

I learned a great deal, but through all of that, I could not shake the nagging feeling that it was all bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the program and the people I worked with. However, I did not really know what my major was about. None of the informatics courses that I took really provided a clue. They were really all over the place.

My interest in astronomy never really went away. After two and a half years, two jobs, an internship, and graduation, I was still thinking about that elusive astronomy degree. On the cusp of graduation in May 2010, I was weighing my options. I still had about $20,000 to work with if I wanted to continue my education. I had an option: continue down the Informatics path with a master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction or go back to Bloomington and earn my Astronomy/Astrophysics degree.

After a friend pointed out that, with an advanced degree, I could make enough money to send myself back into the astronomy program, I went with the HCI option and later took a PHP development job in Carmel, on Indianapolis’ north side. I planned on working full-time and going to grad school full-time.

I was quickly overwhelmed at my job, and then again in school. There simply were not enough hours in the day for me to eat, sleep, go to work, go to class, and prepare for the next class. After the fifth week of classes, I dropped all three of my HCI courses so I would have more time for work and also because my interest in it had been waning in the several months after I applied.

So, here I am in my cubicle at MediaSauce, less then three days away from an important deadline on a site, really wishing I was not here and regretting some of the decisions I made, but not regretting the things that I have learned from them. I firmly believe that everyone should find something that gives their life meaning and make that their life’s work. This is reflected in a speech that Steve Jobs made in a speech at the 2005 Stanford University commencement ceremony.

I have a rough plan on the drawing board that will get me out of this gig and into one that is less ambitious, one that will let me work on my continued education. I plan on returning to Bloomington as a part- or ¾-time student, while working an easier job that does not demand so much of my time or energy.

My prospective major? Astronomy/Astrophysics of course, with a master’s degree following. I had already planned on doing this, just not this soon. HCI is out of the way and the major that I have wanted for three years is within reach. I do not expect it to be easy, but, with the work and study skills that I have picked up, along with some other life experience, it might be easier now than it was last time. I was told by the undergrad Astronomy advisor at IUB that department heads are more likely to accept students going for their second bachelor’s degree because they have already proven they have what it takes to get through that degree program.

If I start next semester, Spring 2011, I could theoretically have my astronomy degree by May 2013. With the part-time job I am trying to get, I would be able to cover all of my living expenses, possibly even my tuition.

When I communicated this plan to my mother, she seemed concerned that I was aimless moving from thing to thing, without any idea of what I want to do. I am 23 years old. I have no idea what I want to do. I just know that I have over $15,000 in savings, some respectable technical skills that can be applied to a part-time job, a passion for science and science education, and a renewed determination to
earn my Astronomy degree.

When I asked for an alternative to my solution, besides remaining in the job that I don’t really like, she had nothing. If someone points out the risk in your reasonably well-laid life plan and cannot offer an alternative, it’s best to tell that person to STFU and then move on.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle.”

In my four years in college, at IUPUI and IU Bloomington, I have found a fatal flaw that consistently plagues higher education: bad instructors.

In an institution whose sole raison d’être is education, one would think that there would be strong priority for seeking out effective instructors and lecturers. I have found that this has been a hit-or-miss endeavor for IU.

There seems to be a school of thought that a school can simply toss a grad student or a PhD into a classroom full of new undergrads and they will be good instructors. A PhD does not a good teacher make. A person might be an expert in whatever field it is that they are teaching, but if they lack the ability to communicate their knowledge effectively and make sure the students understand and retain that knowledge, then they are not good teachers.

In my junior year, while in the Informatics program, I had a PhD student as an instructor for an introductory PHP/OOP course. This class was a disaster. She knew all about Object-Oriented design, but had never taught a class before nor did she have any clue about what would be involved. This resulted in her simply mumbling through her weekly slideshow and expecting each and every student in the room to understand perfectly. She also took to posting line after tiny line of PHP code on her slides and just flipping through them expecting us to instantly know what it meant.

When I took Calculus I during my sophomore year, this time at IU Bloomington, I had a Chinese-born grad student as the instructor for my recitation session. Because she was so soft-spoken, I was forced to sit in the front row to even notice when she was speaking. Unfortunately, her accent was so thick that it was nigh-impenetrable. I do think she was doing her best. I also believe in having an international perspective in American academia, now more than ever. However, if a class is going to be taught in English, then the instructor should be capable of speaking loud, clear, intelligible English. Likewise if the class’ language is Spanish, Chinese, or Finnish.

I would like to state that Indiana University and IUPUI are excellent universities and most of their instructors and lecturers and fantastic. Jason Sisk, Barb Hayes, and Joseph DeFazio are all people whom I had as lecturers at IUPUI and I think they are great teachers. However, if one has a bad instructor, it can ruin the class. That is the reason I am writing this post.

What do I think makes for a good instructor? Here is a short list of the most important qualities, listed in no particular order:

Excellent communication skills

Perfectly fluent in the language that is being used in the course (normally English in the United States)

Deep and broad knowledge of the course’s topic

Enthusiasm for the subject

Enthusiasm for teaching the subject

Openness to criticism of teaching style and willingness to change

Excellent communication skills

In a nation where the education system is in decline, good teachers are in demand, now more than ever. University departments need to try much harder to only hire lecturers who have good teaching skills, possibly even requiring some kind of educational certification. The idea that a PhD or a researcher can just walk into a classroom and be a great teacher is flawed at best and reckless at worst.

Universities: hire good instructors. Don’t just toss a grad student in front of a class. I would wager that you will see higher grades and happier, more productive students.

As someone who is not psychologically prepared to leave school after over 16 years, I have created a rough draft of my educational “Master Plan.” This could be childish rationalization talking, but I think that one should not simply stop after a bachelor’s degree. If you have a reasonably well-paying job, try to stay in school and broaden your education. People often do this with a Master’s degree or, sometimes, a PhD. I am talking about moving beyond a single area of specialization.

I recently graduated, just three months ago, with my first college degree, a Bachelor’s degree in Informatics from Indiana University. Two years prior, I began making plans to stay at IUPUI for graduate school. Then I became inspired to go back to IU Bloomington to finish my Astronomy/Astrophysics degree, which I abandoned during sophomore year. My long-term personal education plans look something like this now:

Okay, so that does look a little crazy. Also, I plan to be working full- or part-time while doing this. Yeah, I’m certifiable. I plan on spending all of my 20s working on degrees in two vastly different fields of study with no real idea or plan of how to apply this knowledge and experience to the real world. Things will work out, I am sure of that.

I will reevaluate my plans as I go, of course. I will keep deciding whether this is really the thing I want to do. I think that if I continually decide this is really the thing I want to do, it can only lead to good things. Who knows? Maybe by the time I start working on my second Master’s degree, IU will decide to give me a volume discount on degrees.

However, despite all the up-to-date computer labs with dozens of computers, free software deals from Microsoft and Adobe, and 24/7 technical support, IU seems to be lacking one thing: open source. There is some Linux/UNIX software available through IU’s software site, IUWare. However, the amount of Linux software there is far outmatched by the software available for Mac and Windows.

Indiana University has deals with several software vendors, in particular Microsoft and Adobe. These corporations provide free software to faculty and students in the hopes that they will continue to use their respective software after graduation. A copy of Adobe CS5 Design Premium can cost as much $1,900. A Microsoft Office 2008 license can cost at least $150. OpenOffice may not be as feature-rich as Microsoft Office, but it would certainly get the job done for 99% of users and it’s free.

Unless it is detailed in IU’s agreement with Microsoft and Adobe that it not push open-source options too hard, I do not see why it should not become a bit more open about open source. At the very least, it is free software that the University will not have to haggle over every few years.

I have been in the Informatics program at IUPUI since the beginning of 2008. I feel that so far, it has been an overall positive experience. However, if I were to offer advice to someone considering Informatics as a major, it would be this: Do not rely on the Informatics courses to give you the skills that you will need to land a job.

Lacking applicable skillsIf you are trying to become a developer of some flavor, the courses offered by the School of Informatics will not adequately prepare you, unless you want to do Flash/ActionScript. For someone who wants to work with a real man’s language, like PHP, Ruby, Java, or C, walk down Michigan Street and get a certificate or minor from the School of Computer Science. Even better, save some time, money, and sweat and make CS your cognate area.

Learn independently
I have found that as a result of the School’s lacking technical instruction, it has become necessary for me to learn job skills on my own. When I was an intern at Mobi Wireless earlier this year, I was dropped into the deep end with Ruby on Rails. I went in knowing nothing about Rails and came out with a working knowledge of the framework. Much of that knowledge and experience came from independent work while on the job.

I think that there are a lot of smart, passionate, creative, and talented people in the School of Informatics, especially at IUPUI. I have had many opportunities to work with them and learn from them. I do not blame them for the screwy curriculum. This is a new area of study and a new school. It will take some time to work out the kinks.